Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Well here we are, time to wrap up this month of mermaids. I've had so much fun making all these mermaid cards and I kinda don't know what to do now, LOL! Aw, I'm sure I'll think of something. And its not like there won't be mermaids joining the rotation later this summer as well. As good as I did getting many stamps inked and onto cards there are still a handful sitting on my desk waiting for their turn.

Today's card is for the ADFD 'pieced or pierced' challenge and I used the fintastically cute Curious Daughter digi. For the pierced element on my card I used a stitched circle die from My Favorite Things. I stamped the monochromatic wave background with some old stamps from my scrapbooking days. The seagull silhouette stamps are something I'm especially proud of. For years I have been wanting a set of small birds in flight silhouette stamps but I've never been able to find any. So yesterday I decided to make my own. I had some grey rubber left over from trimming new stamps and I drew the shapes I wanted then just trimmed them out. I was so nervous testing them on a scratch piece of paper but I am thrilled with the results. So much so that I may make a few more once I get more scrap rubber. Now this little mermaid can sit on her rock and dream about a life on land. ;)

Thanks for joining me this past month and I hope to see you again tomorrow!

Monday, June 29, 2015

Look what I got over the weekend! I had ordered this super cute new stamp, called Magical Friendship, from Tiddly Inks when it was released and I am so glad that it came in time to help wrap up this month of mermaid cards. I can't tell you how much this image spoke to me as soon as I saw it. It reminds me so much of when I was a little girl swimming at the lake, dreaming of mermaids hiding just out of sight in the deep blue waters. Though I was never as lucky as Wryn to meet my own mermaid friend, there are still times when I find myself imagining grand underwater adventures. :)

Friday, June 26, 2015

We are in the middle of a heat wave here and everything is getting hot, hot, hot! I'm definitely thinking about spending the afternoon down at the lake. Sure the water is still freezing cold but it will be a welcome relief.

This little mermaid is keeping cool, she is Mermaid I from Lili of the Valley, and I can officially say that I have now inked up all three of the LOTV mermaid stamps that I own... yeah! It's a feel good moment for me, LOL! I've actually been quite successful in crossing a lot of stamps off my to-ink list during this month of mermaids and I can't believe we are almost to the end of it. Luckily there's no rule saying that I can't throw in a new mermaid here and there as I get them... I mean, have you seen the sneak peek banner over on the Greeting Farm FB page?! ;)

Thursday, June 25, 2015

I was lucky enough to win a Kraftin' Kimmie challenge just in time to use my resulting gift certificate on the brand new mermaid set called Fin-tastic Friends and when it arrived in the mail a couple days ago I just had to get this gal on a card ASAP. I LOVE how relaxed and chill she looks and imagined that if mermaids had a tropical resort to hang out at she would be there running the place, LOL! This resort would be 5-star ritzy I tell ya, so of course she needed a luxe gold tail to feel right at home. And I colored her hair to match the rosy sunset sky behind her... perhaps it is camouflage to blend in with her surroundings. ;)

Anywho, the current KK challenge is to 'try something new', which includes using a new stamp, and since they don't get much newer than this little lady I'm entering my card into the running. :)Toodles!

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

I've made another card for this month's Farm Fresh button challenge and I've also stuck with the head swap theme that I've done on my previous entries as well. This time I stamped up Creeper Syren and replaced her face with that of Royal Pain Creeper Cake's. Why do that you ask? Well, as much as I love Syren, she has a very sexy, kinda vampy look to her and I wanted to give her a kinder, gentler demeanor for this card that is all about sending hugs. So I printed out Royal Pain because she has my favorite Creeper face ever. All I had to do was color up her face and bangs, trim them out and glue them right over the original face. I'd say the transition from sultry to sweet was a complete success. ;)

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Anyone else dreaming of sandy beaches and cool, clear waves? I sure am. It's getting hot again and we are due to hit temps over 108 by the weekend with no relief in sight. Luckily, there is a big blue lake calling my name and I'm planning on spending some serious time in the water to keep cool, all the while dreaming of being a mermaid. ;)

And it looks like this lovely mermaid may be having some dreams of her own... though they are most likely filled with dancing across the sand rather than riding the waves. Mermaid Queen is the name of the SOG digital stamp gracing today's card and as you can see, I went to town with the blues and aquas. I am SO happy with how her hair turned out, it is one of the rare times when it looks just how I pictured it in my mind. There is also more of the Fintastic Friends set from Lawn Fawn, originally I was just going to use the sentiment but then I thought it would be funny if she was passing time building a little sand castle as well.

Alrighty, thanks for stopping by. I've got a day off so hopefully I can spend the afternoon either at the lake or in a nice air conditioned crafty room. :)

Monday, June 22, 2015

I'm off and running this morning so this post will have to be short and sweet. I was looking at the Scripty Sayings set and thought that the doodley lines looked a lot like the wavy surface of choppy water. This inspired the idea to stamp it at the top of some blue paper and fussy cut along the top edge. Once I had my 'water' ready to go it was looking a bit empty so I grabbed the Fintastic Friends set and Tumbled Glass Distress ink to add some monochromatic fish and bubbles to the background. Now all my ocean needed was a mermaid and her special friend, so I grabbed the retired Splash from Sweet November and the Jellyfish from the So Jelly set and got to coloring. The end result is a sweet, simple card that I am really happy with how it turned out. :)

Friday, June 19, 2015

I don't know about you but I can't believe how quickly this week has flown by... it can't be Friday already! If I'm not careful I may blink and the weekend will be gone as well.

Anywho, I got some of the new Summertime papers from October Afternoon this past week and I knew I had just the mermaid to pair up with the bright, fun colors found in this collection. So I inked up the super cute Shelley from Whimsy Stamps and had a blast coloring her to match. If you ask me, these two look quite content to be basking in those rays of sunshine. I die cut the sentiment twice, once in white and once in red, then off set them a bit when I glued them together creating a cool drop shadow that helps it to 'pop'. This card definitely has that summer time energy that comes with this time of year. ;)

Well have fun this weekend and I shall return with more mermaid fun on Monday. :)

Thursday, June 18, 2015

I've got another Sugar Nellie mermaid to share today and another entry into their Sugar Bowl 'anything goes' challenge. This sweet stamp is called Under the Sea and both the mermaid and her sea turtle pal come together, though I cut the rubber apart before foam mounting it so that I can stamp them separately. This is another one where I started coloring without any papers or a specific design in mind. Once I had these Under the Sea friends colored up I searched through my stash for some paper that would inspire this card to come together. When I found this ooooold Karen Foster scrap I knew I had a winner. It mimics the look of a watercolor painting of waves and since watercolor is so hot right now this makes this card look much more creative than it really is, LOL! ;)While fussy cutting the mermaid I chose to do a slight bit of altering on her left arm by snipping it off and re-gluing it just a smidge lower so that the angle of her invisible shoulder looked more natural to me. It's a little thing but it makes me so much happier with the end result. That seaweed down at the bottom of the card is just a single Prima flower that I cut up and I think it grounds the scene in a clever way.

Well, thank for popping by once again. Take care and I will see you manana! :)

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Today's card features the second of three little mermaids from this super cute Penny Black set. Only one left to ink up and my goal is to get each one on a card before this month is over... I'm feeling pretty good about my chances. ;)

So I paired this merbaby and her starfish up with a colorful scrap of older Making Memories paper. This kinda-sorta rainbow stripe has been a long time favorite of mine and I know that I've already used it several times but I don't care. To me it just says summer, and girlie, and happy. Talk about a no-brainer. LOL! All the Copic colors were pulled from the paper and I really couldn't have been happier with the match on her hair. A few quick bubbles from the Fintastic Friends set finished off this CAS card.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

I've got a really fun card to share today that I made for the latest Kraftin Kimmie Saturday challenge which is 'anything goes'. I had colored up this enchanting mermaid from the Sea Jewels set on Saturday just so I could be ahead of the game later in the week. There was no paper pulled and no design plan, I just colored and fussy cut her out. Then the mail came and in it was the new Fintastic Friends set from Lawn Fawn. I had gotten it more for the fish and sentiments than anything else but as I was looking the set over the tank looked big enough to fit my little Sea Jewel into quite comfortably... thus an idea was born.

So I stamped the tank once on blue vellum (wiping away the sand and inner tank lines), twice on clear vellum and once on Copic X-Press it. I colored and cut out the sand and tank bottom, glued it onto one of the clear vellum tanks then sat the mermaid inside. Next I cut out the blue vellum water and just the top of the tank above the waves and ran them through my dusty xyron sticker maker (that was shocked at finally being used) because I didn't want any adhesive to show through the vellum and I needed a lot of stick. Then all I had to do was peel and stick those pieces right over Sea Jewel to make it look like she was resting inside the tank. I couldn't resist adding the fish food jar, and one I altered a bit to look like it was open, because it was just too funny. All in all this card was a lot of fun to make and it totally makes me smile. :)

Monday, June 15, 2015

Well the weekend was fantastic but it just flew by. We did end up going to Spokane and it became a whole girls trip as both of my sisters and mom were with me. Needless to say we had ourselves a very good time and didn't get back until late last night. I was smart though, and got a CAS card done on Saturday so that I could have a quick post today before I rush off to work.

Today's mermaid comes from Some Odd Girl and she is called Mermaid Piper. This lovely little lass looked to me like she makes the waters of the Bahamas her home so I gave her a beautiful, warm skin tone. Initially I pulled all my Copic colors from some pattern paper that turned out to be too busy with this peaceful looking scene and in the end I didn't even use it. Instead some shimmery gold paper just looked right, a minimal amount of embellishing and this card was done.

Ok then, time for me to get moving. Take care and I'll talk at'cha later. :)

Friday, June 12, 2015

Talk about workin' for the weekend, tomorrow I've got my first Saturday off in years. And Sunday I might be taking a road trip to Spokane with my sister Tracy, if the current dog she is fostering gets adopted. Needless to say I'm pretty excited for the next couple of days. :)

I have another card for the new month long Farm Fresh challenge over at The Greeting Farm to use buttons. There is no mention of how many cards we can or cannot enter within the expanded time limit so I'm just going with the flow and playing along until someone says otherwise. Once again I have another altered mermaid to share. This time I did a head (and arm) swap with Surfer Anya and the body of Mermaid Anya II. They had both just been sitting in a stack on my table and as I was sorting through images trying to find one that spoke to me these two just clicked. Talk about a super simple alteration, chop off Mermaid Anya's head and waving arm then glue the remaining finned body right on to Surfer Anya's old two legged body. Fussy cut her out and voila... new Beachy Mermaid Anya. And yes, I grabbed a pink version of that Scrapbook Wizard bubble paper like I used on yesterday's card so the trend continues, LOL!

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Today I'm playing along in the current 'anything goes' Sugar Bowl challenge and I have inked up the lovely Ocean's Gift stamp to do so. I have the rubber version of this image which is no longer available but the digi version can be found right here. She's definitely a bit edgier looking than most of my other mermaid stamps, what with that funky hair-do she's sportin'. So I wanted to show her softer side, thus the cool color palette of light blues, greens and purples. The papers are an old favorite of mine from the long defunct Scrapbook Wizard company. In fact I have this same bubble print in several other color ways and I am tempted to make more mermaid cards using them as well. :)

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

I actually got the idea for today's card while I was making my card for this past Monday's post. I had pulled out a couple sheets of old Doodlebug Seaside stickers and even though I only ended up using one of the border strips then, I really wanted to get this Orca and colorful seaweed border sticker on a card of their own. So when I pulled this cutie Mermaid Kiddo by Stampendous off my desk she had just the right look to complete the scene I had imagined. I colored her up to match the rainbow of sherbet hues in the seaweed border that I cut to different lengths and then overlapped giving her a fun hideaway to play peek-a-boo with Shamoo up there. ;)

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Today I am playing along in the current challenge over at A Day for Daisies, which is to CASE one of the DT member's cards. I chose to pull inspiration from this lovely card created by Broni. Not only did her card get me to create another 'smooshed' watercolor background but I also found myself adding sequins and a white sentiment against the watercolor. All of this creates a lovely background for this Mermaid in a Jar digi that I have just been dying to color up. Being quite familiar with the idea of fairies trapped in a jar this was the first stamp I'd seen that had a tiny mermaid caught in the same situation and I love it. Though I'm sure it is only a temporary situation for her... perhaps she is being relocated to a new pond or lagoon. ;)

Monday, June 8, 2015

It's another beautiful June day and I've got yet another mermaid card to share. Today's card features Aurora from Sister Stamps, whom I just adore, as well as a friendly turtle pal also from Sister Stamps. I am such a fan of these stamps and I'm secretly hoping they will design some fairies someday soon so I can add them to my collection of fantasy type stamps. :)I paired Aurora and Mr. Turtle with some older scraps of Doodlebug papers I found in my stash, that stripe even dates back from 2001... yikes! It can't be a good thing when your crafty supplies start making you feel old, LOL! Anywho, I really like how they both look like they are going against the flow which ties back to the sentiment nicely.

Now I know this month is all about our flippered friends but I do have a special little four legged guy to introduce you to. Meet Cosmo, he is the newest member of the Young household and even though I am starting to feel like a bit of a 'crazy cat lady' this handsome fellow has quickly found a place in my heart. And luckily he is getting along quite nicely with his big brothers. I'm not sure what I will do if he takes a liking to spending time in the crafty room too... three cats on my desk won't leave me a whole lot of space to get anything done, LOL! :)

Friday, June 5, 2015

Just a quick little card today to ink up this amazingly cute little mermaid from a Penny Black mermaid set I've had for quite some time now. I started coloring this mermaid before pulling papers to use with her and I may not have gone quite so blue with her hair if I had. Oh well, it may not be a great match to everything else but I guess it does help her stand out on the card. I also chose to do a rosy sky for added contrast and I love how it looks like she swam up out of the deep blue to bask in a beautiful sunrise. The gold Sprinkles seemed like the perfect embellie to finish off the design and tie back into that fancy gold belt she is sportin'. ;)

Well, that's all I've got for today. Hope you have a fintastic weekend and I'll see ya on Monday! :)

Thursday, June 4, 2015

There have been some changes at The Greeting Farm'sFarm Fresh challenge, it now runs an entire month and the big prize is a $50 gift certificate to the store. So no way am I not playing along, LOL! The challenge for June is to add buttons to your card and considering I have plenty of those in my stash this one was easy-peasy. In keeping with my current month of mermaids theme I chose Sea Bean from the Magical set but did a simple head swap with Winky Bean. This one was so simple, all I had to do was cut out Winky's head, minus her pigtails, and glue it right over Sea Bean's face, the hair on the top of her head matched up real nice to the flowing locks below. That cute fishy paper is from the new Camp Out collection by Bella Blvd and as always their cute designs just seem to go hand in hand with Greeting Farm stamps. Now if they would only start making 6x6 paper pads of their designs like Doodlebug does then I would be a very happy camper indeed. :)

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Today I've got a pair of lovely mermaids gracing my card. The stamp is called 'Little Mermaid Friends' and is from Lili of the Valley. The image is so intricate that I knew from the start there would be no fussy cutting so instead I went with a very clean and simple card design. Heck, I didn't even add any embellishing other than some glossy accents on the bubbles and Wink of Stella glitter on the fins. And I'm still tickled to get more use out of those star sentiments by playing off the whole starfish theme going on here. All in all, I'm quite pleased with how this simple and sweet card came together. :)

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Today's mermaid comes from the Under the Sea set from Some Odd Girl. She's been stamped up and waiting to fulfill her card destiny for quite some time and while her sister was colored up ages ago this little lady hadn't been as lucky. But I think the wait was worth it because I know she wouldn't have turned out half as cool two years ago.

The card design all started with the ombre washi tape that I wanted to use. With its blend of mint and coral I thought it would be perfectly pretty for a mermaid. Next I couldn't resist jumping on the watercolor background bandwagon that seems to be all the rage over on Pinterest. The 'smooshing' was actually a lot of fun so don't be surprised if this technique pops up on my blog again sometime soon. When it came time to color up this mermaid I kept coming back to that coral color which then got me to thinking about beautiful spotted koi fish and I knew I had my inspiration. I'm sure that a koi mermaid is just as lucky as the fish are believed to be. ;)

Well thanks for stopping by for day two of my month of mermaids. I'll be swimming by with another card tomorrow. Laters! :)

Monday, June 1, 2015

As I mentioned on Friday, I've decided to do something a bit different this month and have all of the stamps I use follow a specific theme. So June is going to be the month of mermaids on the ol' Thousand Sheets blog! I realized recently that I have mermaid stamps from all but one of my favorite stamp companies and this will be a fantastic way to get more of them on to cards this summer.

Because I want to play along in this week's Kraftin Kimmie challenge to 'distress it' my KK mermaids were the first up to kick off this whole wet and wild month. I hadn't inked up any of the beauties from the Sea Jewels set yet so that was the first place I looked and funnily enough I kind of got side tracked into doing an altered mermaid instead. But when I saw Arielle swinging on her swing I couldn't help but think she would make for a pretty awesome mermaid herself. So I only inked her to her waist and wiped away her halter top and the strings in her hands, then stamped Arielle onto Copic X-Press It. I then borrowed the tail from one of the Sea Jewels and stamped it onto a separate scrap of cardstock. Once I had drawn in a stylish new seashell top all I had to do was color and then glue the two halves together. Voila... Arielle the mermaid, LOL! ;)I used a Tim Holtz edge distressor to rough up the edges of that background paper and did a bit of paper tearing on the sentiment strip to fit the challenge. Then I found this great sentiment that is actually part of a different kind of star set from Hero Arts but it got my creative juices flowing even faster. I had needed something for Arielle to hold on to since her hands that had once been hanging on to a swing where now just raised randomly in the air and how perfect would it be to give her a few starfish to match that sentiment? I gotta say, I kinda love how this all came together.

Ok, time for me to get this day going. So much to do, so much to do. Thanks for stopping by! :)